Qatar / Middle East & North Africa

Journalists killed in Qatar since 1992

Qatar documents by Year:

Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death

October 30, 2018 2:59 PM ET

It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi's last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens....

YouTube labels on public broadcasters draw ire in US, Russia

March 15, 2018 3:43 PM ET

With claims to more than one billion users consuming content in 76 languages, Google's YouTube has become a core part of most media outlets' dissemination strategy. And although there are 88 localized versions of the service, YouTube.com remains the largest and most influential platform for reaching a global audience....

CPJ joins coalition to establish sports and human rights center

November 30, 2017 10:12 AM ET

The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined a coalition of international sport organizations, civil society, and governments that are establishing an independent Centre for Sport and Human Rights. In a statement published today, the Mega-Sporting Events Platform for Human Rights, which CPJ is part of, outlined its commitment to...

Calls to shutter Qatari media show contempt for press freedom

June 28, 2017 3:10 PM ET

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt to drop demands that Qatari-funded media be closed as a condition for the lifting of the partial blockade they have imposed on Qatar.

Gulf countries order Qatar to close Al-Jazeera and other outlets

June 23, 2017 2:10 PM ET

New York, June 23, 2017--A group of Arab countries today issued Qatar a list of demands, including that the Gulf nation close media outlets that it funds, among them the broadcasters Al-Jazeera and Arabi 21, and the websites Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and Middle East Eye. The demands are a prerequisite...

Amid Gulf tensions, press is used as a political pawn

June 8, 2017 5:38 PM ET

Today Bahrain became the latest Gulf nation to put pressure on news outlets amid political tension, when its Interior Ministry announced that anyone publishing support or sympathy for Qatar faces up to five years in prison. The announcement came the day after the United Arab Emirates used the threat...

Jordan revokes Al-Jazeera license amid Qatar tensions

June 6, 2017 6:04 PM ET

New York, June 6, 2017--Jordan's Ministry of Information today revoked the license for Qatar broadcaster Al-Jazeera and said it will close the broadcaster's Jordanian office. In an announcement reported by the state-run Petra News Agency, the ministry said its actions came after "reviewing the crisis" between Qatar and neighboring...

Danish television crew detained by Qatari authorities

May 19, 2016 5:19 PM ET

Qatari security forces on May 5, 2016, detained three journalists for the state-run Danish Broadcasting Corporation, one of the detained journalists, Niels Borchert Holm, told the Committee to Protect Journalists....

Qatar detains international journalists for the second time this year

May 18, 2015 3:51 PM ET

New York, May 18, 2015--For the second time in two months, an international news crew was arrested and interrogated by Qatari security officials while they were reporting on the human rights situation in Qatar in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect...

New cybercrime law could have serious consequences for press freedom in Qatar

September 17, 2014 6:01 PM ET

New York, September 17, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Qatari government to abolish parts of a restrictive cybercrime law that passed this week, despite assurances from its prime minister last year that the legislation would not restrict freedom of expression, which is protected under the Qatari constitution....